Friday, August 6, 2010

My 100th Blog Post

I'll mark this milestone with a remembrance of good ole New York. I spent a good chunk of the last two decades commuting to work by subway. Some days I could not see past a strangers' armpit, and I'd be holding my breath as long as I could. Breathing like a snake, just enough to stay alive. Other days, I'd glance around around at my fellow commuters, and if there was nothing to look at--I mean, how long can you watch someone curl her eyelashes-- I'd read the posters and ads plastered above the windows. I saw similar themes year after year. Lots of ads for colleges and vocational schools, personal injury legal advice (one firm's logo was a leprechaun wearing boxing gloves), and English as a second language. It was odd to me that THAT poster was IN English.

 Then there were the medical ones...for all manner of bumps, lumps, fissures and gawd knows what else.

"Torn Earlobe?"

"Hammer Toes?"

"Scar Tissue or Keloids?"

"The Heartbreak of Psoriasis?"

Gah! I hadn't had my morning tea yet, and I'd have graphic photos burned into my brain and would have made a mental note to look up disorders like "keloids" when I got to the office. The fissures were not geological in nature. And, the hammer toes didn't look much better "after."

How about Dr Zizmor?  Call "Dr Z--You too can have beautiful, clear skin!"   "Thank you, Dr Z! You saved my life!"

One one of my last weekends in NY before I moved down south, my cousin Chris, who is a certified master life coach  http://www.christinabrandt.com/ 
and Mary Ann Wasil Nilan, the tireless spokes-survivor and founder of  http://www.getintouchfoundation.org/
stayed at my place while in NYC for the big Oprah Winfrey conference. 

After breakfast, Mary Ann took our picture at the corner at the top of my block, while I was holding up one of her foundations' "Daisy Wheels" (a breast cancer symptom primer for girls.) As Mary Ann backed up to take the picture, she started laughing hysterically. We looked up and saw the billboard that was overhead. I wish the picture was more clear. My old neighborhood has gentrified...but still has that NYC cheeky-ness about it! Ha ;-)


2 comments:

  1. Ask and you shall receive...I'll e-mail you a close-up I took of that sign! I forgot I had done that until I read this blog post!

    Ahh...New Yawk!

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  2. 100 Blogs, how awesome! I can't wait to hear more about your home. Send pictures! What a crack up about the subway posters and what people do on the subway. May I just say that in London people do equally interesting things. For example, I saw a guy playing w/ himself (as if that newspaper hid anything!); I see women putting on make up every day; people picking their nails, painting them, filing them (that's when I cough loudly to remind them that I am breathing in their nail dust). Gawd, people lack a tact and gentility in these parts too!

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